


better tell 'em while they're here

by philthestone



Series: nursery 'verse [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Republic Era - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, au for the eu, is there a plot I'm not really sure, nursery verse trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 23:10:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3399758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jacen discovers a Fish in the new fountain just outside of the Old Palace's reception hall, which obviously means that the Imps are planning to take over the galaxy. Jaina thinks that everything would be alright if only Nik could remember where he put his pants. </p><p>And of course, Uncle Luke's getting married today.</p><p>(AU for the EU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	better tell 'em while they're here

**Author's Note:**

> more nursery 'verse because I am _weak_. 
> 
> I wrote out all of my headcanons for Luke and Mara's wedding and how everything happens because Leia is a Wild Child and decides that elopement is The Way To Go (and who is Han to complain, really) on the ole tumblrino, and then I wrote that scene with Leia and Jaina getting ready for the wedding and this suddenly happened too. There's very little real plot, other than The Fish, but there is a lot of family nonsense and Karrde really does smuggle rock candies. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I've said it before - a lot of nursery 'verse is inspired by irnan's swallows and amazons. She's the coolest most amazing cat. For more information on my specific outlines regarding nursery verse, though, shoot me a message. Or find me on tumblr. And I'll write you novels about it basically.
> 
> Title (which used to belong to the other fic) from Imagine Dragons.
> 
> Reviews are the deep-fried sandwiches Luke gets from Dex's!

Jaina wakes up with her head on the wrong side of the bed.

There’s something about going to bed the night before excited about things to come – the taste of anticipation in your mouth, like there’s butterflies in your chest and balls at the bottom of your feet and you can’t fall asleep for _ages_ and keep tossing over and poking Jacen in the back, turn in your sleep so that when your eyes finally snap open everything’s upside down – that makes waking up in the morning a lot easier than it usually is.

And a lot earlier, too.

The one thing Jaina hates about Coruscant – well, one of many things, but she almost ( _almost_ ) never voices these complaints to anyone but Jacen and Nik and the occasional Uncle Luke – is the fact that it very rarely feels like it’s _truly_ night and day. The flashing lights from the traffic lanes outside their windows are always lighting everything up in an artificial glow, and when she wakes up in the morning it almost looks the same as when she went to bed. At least, not unless they’re all the way on the top levels. Which, Jaina acknowledges, they _are_.

But it’s the principle of the thing.

Yavin isn’t like that. On Yavin, she always knows exactly what time it is _wherever_ she is, because she can see the sun and hear the animals, and Jacen says that when certain ones start making a racket, it means they’re waking up and _you_ oughta wake up, too. And on Yavin, they don’t have to wait for Anakin to rush through the door wide-eyed with excitement, because he’d already be in their room, in the next bed over.

(“It’ll be fun,” says Mom, in that Tone that says she _knows_ they’re going to argue and Won’t Stand For It. Apparently, this is a Non-Debatable Issue. “Nik can sleep with me and Dad so that he doesn’t feel lonely and you two get your own room like you used to have. Aren’t you excited?”

Jaina isn’t excited, exactly. Not about this. About a great many other things, yes - but not _this_. Actually, Jaina thinks that the sleeping arrangements are decidedly _lousy_. So does Jasa. And Nik, despite the thrilling promise of The Big Bed and Mom and Dad on either side of him, looks unsure as to whether or not he wants to relinquish slumber party rights with his siblings on such an important night as this one.

But, Jacen says after a moment. Sacrifices _must_ be made for the Greater Good, and so they accept their fate, solemnly and without argument.)

She sits up, and wiggles her toes experimentally under the blankets – waking up with her head on the other side of the bed, she can’t take any risks – and then pokes Jasa with her foot.

He’s shot up into a sitting position within half a second of her toe connecting with his side.

“DidImizzit?”

Jaina makes a point of rolling her eyes to prove how much more awake she is than him. “No, dummy. No one else’s awake yet.”

“Oh,” Jacen heaves a sigh of relief, but makes no move to flop back down onto the pillows like he usually would.

_Today’s the day._

From just outside in the hall, she hears a door swishing open and the sound of pattering footsteps.

Slowly, together, they grin.

And Anakin bursts into the room, pajamas still adorned and his hair, just a little lighter than Jaina’s, sticking up in funny places at the front. He’s grinning fit to burst.

_“Uncle Luke’s getting married today!”_

Jaina wants to dance around the room.

**

Jaina tells Uncle Luke, ignoring her cereal and sitting at the fancy, gilded kitchen table – the one that they’ve grown up running around (but somehow hardly miss) that stands in the lounge with the big transparisteel window facing all the traffic zooming by – that it’s awful silly that him and Aunt Mara aren’t getting married where they want to get married, but on Coruscant, with twenty different sorts of people that none of _them_ know. Jacen, from around the flaking Dornish pastry in his mouth, whole-heartedly agrees. Anakin is somewhere underneath the table, playing fighter pilots with the scrappy toy X-wing that Dad helped him make for his eighth birthday and avoiding eating breakfast. Jaina can relate – sometimes, you’re just so excited that things as mundane as breakfast have no appeal.

“It’s alright,” Uncle Luke assures her, blue eyes twinkling and freshly-shaved and looking as though he’s far too happy to let something as trivial as not knowing his own wedding guests bother him in the least. “I know most of these people. And we’re already officially married. This is just a reception.”

“Yeah,” says Dad, putting the pot of caf down on the table and extracting a protesting Anakin from under the table. “Luke’s being the good twin and actually _having_ a reception.”

Jasa shoots her a grin from the other side of the table – they’ve heard Uncle Luke gleefully tell this story hundreds of times.

“I still can’t believe the whole eloping bit wasn’t your idea, Dad,” says Jacen, and Nik says “what’s an nilopement?” even though he’s heard the story hundreds of times, too.

“Hey,” says Dad, pointing at Luke. “Ask your Uncle. That one was all Mom.”

“It’s true,” says Uncle Luke, twirling one of the Jillie flowers (they’re _everywhere_ , ever since Uncle Luke nabbed one of the crates at the reception hall and dumped it in the old apartment to chase away the musty smell that’d settled down around the place since their move to Yavin. Jaina isn’t sure if she loves them or she wants to fling them all into the oncoming traffic because the petals keep getting into her cereal bowl) between the fingers on his real hand. “My big political wedding is all on your Mom.”

“Don’t worry, Uncle Luke,” says Jacen solemnly, reaching over to pluck his third pastry from the flimsiplast container, the only one of the five of them who seems capable of eating as though it was any old day of the week. Mom is still in the ‘fresher, answering comm. calls, and Aunt Mara’s not due to show up for another hour. “ _We’ll_ make sure you and Aunt Mara have fun.”

**

Jaina wriggles into her fancy dress an hour before they’re supposed to be at the reception, managing to tie the ribbons at the back herself and then sitting relatively still on the vanity stool in her parents’ room as Mom braids her short hair over the crown of her head, expertly slipping one of the fallen Jillies into a pin at the back. Jacen’s in the next room complaining to Dad about pants, and so Jaina slips out, after giving Mom a quick hug, and goes to recruit him and his brand new dress clothes to fetch Anakin from Aunt Mara’s room, where he’s running around in nothing but his underwear and watching her pin Jillie flowers into her own hair.

Jaina feels very adult when she tells Nik that he can’t very well wear his underwear to the reception.

“Councilor Ari-a Mundi would have a _fit_ ,” Jacen agrees, tugging at the collar of his nice shirt. “And Councilor Fey’lya might drop dead on the floor right there in the middle of the reception.”

“Wouldn’t _that_ be a sight,” mutters Aunt Mara from in front of the ‘fresher mirror, and Jacen and Jaina giggle.

“Coruscant’s no fun,” sighs Nik, looking morosely at the little bouquet of mismatched Jillies that he’s put together and wrinkling his nose. “If we were doing this on Yavin, I bet I could wear my underwear.”

“I’ve got my doubts about that, too,” says Aunt Mara, slipping the last pin into her hair – but she’s smiling as she says it. She’s got Jillies _all over_ , pinned in her hair like they’re a natural part of the bright red mass that Jaina’s always so envious of, and her sweeping green wedding robes are hanging from her freckled shoulders. Jaina thinks she’s never seen anyone look so pretty.

“I know what you mean,” Jasa consoles, patting Nik on the shoulder. “Dad said there might not even be a fish pond.”

“I hope Captain Karrde’s gonna be there,” says Nik, as Aunt Mara sits on the bed to slip on her heels.

“Yeah,” agrees Jaina, remembering Captain Karrde’s sly winks and neatly-trimmed beard. “He always sneaks us the coolest sweets.”

Aunt Mara winks and takes her new bouquet from Anakin’s small hands. “He told me he was coming _especially_ for you.”

“Don’t be silly,” says Jaina, giving her newly-official aunt a Look. “It’s _your_ wedding, Aunt Mara. If anyone, he’s coming for you.”

“I wonder if he’ll give Aunt Mara and Uncle Luke sweets?” says Jacen (a completely valid question, Jaina thinks), and Aunt Mara laughs out loud.

**

The discovery of the fish pond – which is, to Jacen’s great delight, there _despite_ their father’s dire predictions – is made three hours after the reception starts. Jaina and Jacen and Anakin, armed with pilfered sandwiches from the buffet table and a bugling pocketful of Captain Karrde’s Noobian rock candies (which Anakin excitedly dubs totally _astral_ ), convene at the edge of it to peer inside and assess the situation. 

Technically, they’re at a formal event. And technically, fish-pond-diving is not an approved Formal Event Activity.

But it’s not actually a formal event, argues Jasa; it’s a wedding – and, more importantly, it’s _Uncle Luke’s_ wedding, and Coruscant at this time of year is _hot_ , and, space it all, Nik declares that if he has to stand one more minute in the stuffy reception hall with his buttons all done up he might just spontaneously combust from the stress of it all, so please give his regrets to Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara. Only, he says "spontinously corrupt" and Jacen wonders belatedly if any of the rock candies had Spice in them.

(Their assigned seating is four people down from their Aunt and Uncle, at the big table up front of the hall, and Jaina thinks that Uncle Luke looks awful handsome wearing bright yellow robes and smiling blue-eyed smiles despite the heat and many dignitaries. Only, Jaina has a sneaking suspicion he’s been talking to Aunt Mara through their Force bond, because Aunt Mara looks like she’s been trying very hard not to laugh every five minutes and has the glint in her eye that she always gets when she knows something no one else does.)

Well, Jaina reasons, most of the fancy people in the reception won’t even think to come looking for them – and everyone who _would_ think to come looking for them wouldn’t mind their fish pond discovery, anyway, most of _them_ being grown up friends from the Temple or Captain Karrde’s crew or Chewie or Uncle Lando and Captain Antilles and the Rogues; Mom will let them be as long as she can feel that they’re okay. And Dad would be the one dumping Nik in the water to _begin_ with, really, so all things considered ... 

Anakin lets out an excited whoop and almost falls into the pond headfirst.

At least Jasa has the presence of mind to strip off his shoes and socks before splashing into the waist-deep, cool green water of the duracreet fountain, the ornate carvings on the rim making it look like some sort of fancy stone. Nik tries to dive in fully clothed, even after his almost-fall into the still, glittering water, and Jaina has to tug him back and suggest he rid himself of his footwear. For all of his earlier complaints about clothing restrictions, Anakin is awfully reluctant to part with his shoes.

(Jaina has to trade him one of her sandwiches and the threat of Mom’s Eyebrows to convince him to go in barefoot, and by the time she herself has peeled off her hot, sweaty leggings and splashed into the pond after her brothers, Jasa’s already discovered The Fish.)

**

They give up splashing around for five minutes to eat their smuggled sandwiches and candies before they get soggy, sitting on the edge of the duracrete pond and dangling their dripping legs. Jacen’s pants are soaked up to the waist and Jaina has to tie her nice dress in a knot just low enough to cover her underwear so that it doesn’t get ruined, and Nik’s got synthetic pond reeds in his hair.

They are silent for a moment, distributing the sandwiches equally among themselves (Jaina's bribe forgotten), and Jaina wonders at the swell of emotion in the Force – she can feel it, like a sort of shift – ever since Uncle Luke picked them up from school, months ago, and told them The News.

Uncle Luke was right, earlier, at the breakfast table – he and Aunt Mara _were_ already officially married, only last week, and Jaina and Jacen and Anakin were there with their parents and Uncle Lando and Chewie and halfway through Captain Karrde and half the _Karrde’s_ crew showed up, and three or four of Rogue Squadron, too – and it wasn’t half the quiet affair that Uncle Luke had promised it would be (“ _Ha_ ,” Mom had said. “I told you nothing can be quiet with this crowd,” and Dad had laughed). But it was better than this.

Already, three done-up New Republic councilors have pinched Jaina’s cheek and exclaimed over how much she’s _grown_ , Jacen’s hair has been ruffled condescendingly twice, and Nik told her, a half hour after the reception had started, eyes wide with horror, that Mr. Aves, privately-lauded master of stylish space bum attire, was actually wearing a _tie_.

Nik is right, Jaina decides – Yavin is better than Coruscant. It’s more alive, and more _real_ , and the Temple’s huge and airy, none of the carpeted passages and big ballrooms that are in the Old Palace – and it’s got doors that you can actually bang at the Temple and all of Jasa’s pets and the old hyperdrive Dad gave to Jaina as a birthday present that’s sitting in the middle of her room, all in pieces ‘cause she’s _almost_ got it working again –

But still. _Still_.

There’s something in the Force today that Jaina can’t quite put her finger on. Something _good_.

“I fink,” says Anakin, voice muffled by the abundance of sandwich in his mouth. “That Uncle Luke’s r’lly happy t’day.”

“Well,” says Jacen. “Aunt Mara _is_ Aunt Mara, isn’t she?”

Jaina shakes her head, takes a lick of her orange rock candy. “It’s not like that. Uncle Luke’s been happy for ages. Mom said. Now it’s just never going to go away.”

“Can a person really do all that?” asks Nik, swallowing his food. “Make you happy forever, I mean.”

Jaina shares a glance with Jacen. And shrugs, feeling like she ought to know this.

“Dunno,” says Jaina. “But it’d be nice.”

“’Course they can,” says Jacen, looking at his siblings as though they’re short a power coupling. “Look at you two, and Mom and Dad, and Uncle Luke – we’ve got each other, haven’t we?”

“Oh,” says Nik, his eyes widening, and Jaina almost wants to reach over and give Jasa a hug. “We do, don’t we.”

“’Sides,” adds Jaina, reaching over to bop Anakin on the nose (he makes a face) instead of distributing impulsive hugs. “If anyone could do it, it’d be Aunt Mara.”

“Isn’t it great, though?” says Jasa, his face suddenly breaking into a huge, beaming, lopsided grin, and Nik and Jaina turn to look at him. Jaina feels like since her own grin got itself onto her face, it’s not going away anytime soon. “We’re actually _supposed_ to call her ‘aunt’ now.”

Jaina thinks she’s finally put her finger on The Feeling, and she lets her chest swell up with it, feels Jacen’s sense soak it up, too.

“It _is_ ,” says Jaina.

Anakin nods, as though this one moment has Decided something. “It’s the _greatest_.”

**

It’s only minutes later that they give up on serious conversation and Jacen brings up The Fish.

“I think,” says Jasa, contemplative, taking a bite out of his sandwich and accidentally smearing butter on his cheek (the reception sandwiches are terribly fancy, but Jaina thinks that the greasy deep-fried ones that Uncle Luke always gets them from Dex’s taste loads better), “it’s a Torlock fish. It’s got the markings all right.”

“I thought Torlock fish grew on some moon in the Rim,” says Anakin, frowning slightly, as Jacen catches Jaina’s mental giggle and wipes his cheek with the back of his hand.

“I didn’t say it’s _supposed_ to be here,” says Jasa, (“fishes don’t _grow_ , Nik,” corrects Jaina immediately) looking incredibly knowledgeable. “I just said it looks like it.”

“You mean Torlocks’ve got purple puff bags over their eyes too?” asks Jaina, more interested in the lone fish’s brilliant purple-y scales and the strange-looking pockets of air covering its eyes than she is with its genus and species.

Jacen nods, tapping his sandwich against his chin and spraying crumbs down his front. “And the yellow tail, too.”

“ _Wizard_ ,” breathes Nik, taking his rock candy out of his mouth for the express purpose of voicing his approval. “What d’you think it’s doing here, Jaya?”

“No idea,” says Jaina, biting on her lower lip. “Maybe it’s just here on accident.”

“Maybe one of the senators slipped it in?” suggests Jacen, watching as Nik pops the candy back into his mouth enthusiastically and swinging his still-wet legs against the duracrete.

“Don’t be silly,” says Jaina. “How would a fish just pop up on Coruscant?”

“It could be a government conspiracy,” suggests Jacen in a dramatic whisper, grinning at his sister. Jaina feels her eyes grow wide. “Maybe the _Imps_ are in on it,” he continues. “Maybe they want to start a breeding program. Maybe they’ll make a Torlock fish _army_.”

“Maybe one of the senators slipped it in _illegally_ ,” amends Nik, while Jaina frowns.

“They can’t do that,” she protests, looking at Jacen. “That’s against sentient rights, isn’t it? Or is the fish not sentient?”

“I dunno,” says Jasa, finishing off his sandwich and kneeling on the edge of the pond to watch the purple fish ripple through the water. “There’s only one way to find out, though.”

Jaina considers this, and then looks down to examine the general state of her clothing – the hem of her dress will almost certainly be crumpled, and one of the ribbons his stained brownish-green. It’ll live, she supposes. She’s not so sure about Jacen’s pants, though.

She looks back at her brother. “It’ll be _sithin’_ hard.”

Jasa grins, and pushes the sleeves of his dress shirt up with sticky fingers.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s _us_.”

_Well, duh._

Nik, climbing up onto the fountain edge with his siblings, says, “But what about the wedding?” and Jaina glances back behind them into the hall, where the party is still in full swing. She’s pretty sure the dancing – or at least, the serious dancing – stopped a half hour ago, and when she reaches out to Uncle Luke she comes up against a blanket wall of _happy_ before catching strains of frustration underneath.

Jaina looks at her twin.

 _It’s_ their _wedding, after all._

“Well,” says Jaina slowly. “I suppose I ought to go fetch Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara.”

“It’s an important discovery,” agrees Jasa. “And they get first priority.”

“D’you think we can show it to Mom and Dad after the reception?” asks Nik, peering into the water skeptically.

“’Course we can,” says Jaina, hopping down from the fountain. “But Uncle Luke’s the one getting married, so he gets to see it first.”

“’Sides,” she hears Jacen say as she races back into the reception hall, shoes and leggings laying forgotten by the side of the pond, “Uncle Luke’s got fast reflexes. He can help us catch her.”

(Jaina would wonder how her brother knows the fish is a girl, but she’s long since accepted that Jacen just _knows_ these things.)

**

The problem, Jaina realizes, once she’s slipped back into the reception hall with the hem of her dress once again loosened to hang at her knees, is that while Properness in its _actuality_ isn’t a necessity, they’re still at a Formal Event, and Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara are still getting married, and generally, adults don’t do things like romp around fish ponds at Formal Events, regardless of the heat _or_ dignitaries.

This, of course, is not something to deter her in her task. But it does require a certain element of stealth, which is why she finds herself face to face with Aunt Mara’s knees, draped in green, from her position under the high-standing tables at the front.

(Uncle Luke, though he assures Jaina through the Force that he’s perfectly fine, is absolutely nowhere to be found.)

She pokes the knee.

Almost immediately, she can feel her aunt’s (and Jaina feels a little thrill go down to her toes, because, sure, they’ve been _calling_ her “Aunt Mara” for the better part of the last year, but this is _real_ ) Force-presence twitch, and she grins. Pokes the knee again.

This time, the tablecloth gets lifted up and Jaina crawls forward and positions her chin on the edge of the chair, looks up at her aunt’s vaguely surprised face.

“Hi,” whispers Jaina.

“You gonna tell me what you’re doing under the table, Rogue Leader?”

There’s a person that Jaina only has vague, hazy memories of – something to do with a stuffed mewsk and her mother giving a speech – sitting on Aunt Mara’s other side, and he clears his throat and picks up the datapad with the wine list on it in a graceful attempt to pretend that Councilor Organa-Solo’s eldest daughter isn’t crawling under the table with pond mud undoubtedly smudged on her nose.

(Jaina thinks that grown ups are far better at this whole “proper appearance” thing than _she_ is.)

“It’s an emergency,” she tells Aunt Mara seriously, still in a whisper, and grins when her aunt leans over, head dropping down to peer under the table and her elbows on her lap, raising an eyebrow at her.

“An emergency, you say?”

Jaina nods. “Jasa found this _wicked_ cool fish in the pond.”

“Ah,” whispers Aunt Mara, shooting a glance over at her unknown table companion, who’s doing a very good job at hiding his smile behind the wine list. Jaina thinks that he’s an awfully decent sort. “And you’re in need of a professional opinion?”

“It’s _your_ wedding,” whispers Jaina, mirroring Aunt Mara’s raised eyebrow. “It’s only right.”

“Of course,” agrees Aunt Mara, and two moments and a flashed apologetic smile later, she’s slipped out from around the table, standing in front of the tablecloth long enough for Jaina to slip back out covered by the fluttering green wedding robe and keep up the Proper Routine.

(Mom would be proud of them, Jaina knows.)

“So,” says Aunt Mara in her normal voice, as they tiptoe their way out the edge of the reception hall and Jaina tugs a loose lock of hair out from her braid in annoyance. “How big’s the fish?”

“ _Massive_ ,” says Jaina, spreading out her arms in demonstration. “And it’s all purple, too. Jasa’s trying to catch it.”

Aunt Mara looks duly impressed. “No way. And it’s in the pond, huh?”

“Nik thinks the Imps might be trying to grow a fish army.”

“Not entirely unfounded,” says her aunt with a shrug, as Jaina stops walking abruptly to take in the scene in front of her.

Her twin brother is standing triumphantly in the middle of the pond, dripping wet and with synthreeds hanging in his eyes, clutching a thrashing, brilliantly purple fish almost a third his size and grinning fit to burst.

Anakin has somehow misplaced his pants.

“Oh, blaster bolts,” says Jaina, her voice the polar opposite of distressed. “Mom’s gonna kill us.”

Aunt Mara’s already shrugged off her wedding robes, draping them over her freckled, tan arm and standing there in leggings and a camisole.

“Mom and Dad are still dancing,” Jaina says, tying her rumpled dress back into a knot around her waist. “So we’ve probably got time.”

“Luke’s stuck talking to the senator from Chandrila,” adds Aunt Mara, in answer to the unasked question, hanging the robes from one of gargoyles at the edge of the garden. “But that’s one fancy fish. And I can help you find Anakin’s pants, too.”

“That would be good,” Jasa says from his spot in the middle of the pond, blinking green water out of his eyes and narrowly dodging The Fish’s wriggling tail. “’Cause I can’t find them for space dust.”

“I swear I never even took them off!” insists Nik, and Jaina feels her grin grow bigger even as she rolls her eyes.

(Later, none of them will be able to say exactly when and how it degenerates into a game of tag around the pond. As Jacen predicted what seems like days earlier, Councilor Fey’lya nearly drops to the floor in a faint when he emerges from the reception hall for “a breath of air” and sees them; Anakin’s pants are hanging off the sculpture in the middle of the fountain.)

Jaina thinks that she hopes Uncle Luke can make Aunt Mara happy forever, too, and when Uncle Luke finally joins them, twenty minutes later, hanging his own robes beside’s Aunt Mara’s and dunking Nik back into the fountain, laughing like she doesn’t think she’s ever actually heard him laugh before when Aunt Mara elbows him out of the way in racing after a hollering Jacen, when he leans back over to kiss her on the cheek –

Jaina decides that he _can_.

(Mom and Dad barely sigh at their ruined clothes. 

“It’s my wedding,” says Uncle Luke, ever their stalwart defender, “and I think they look perfectly presentable.” 

And when Jaina puts forward the motion for Nik to sleep with her and Jasa in the bed that night, because there’s _definitely_ room and it’s an Important Occasion and _yes, Mom, we promise we’ll actually sleep_ , Mom only purses her lips for a moment before Jaina catches Dad slipping a hand around her back to her arm and leaning over and whispering something in her ear and so Mom, her cheeks only slightly pinker than usual, sighs and says “yes, of course, one night is absolutely fine.”

Dad throws a wink Jaina’s way and Jaina tells Jasa and Nik in the speeder ride home that parents, no matter how lovely, can be decidedly _weird_.)

**Author's Note:**

> Characters like Councilor Ari-a Mundi and the Torlock fish are entirely figments of my own imagination, having zero basis in either the EU, the movies, the shows, or the good old wookiee'. Actually, I just realized that these kids and their penchant for offending poor Councilor Mundi is becoming a theme. Oh, well.
> 
> As for characterization, know that I'm getting all of this from Thrawn, half of a Junior Jedi Knights book, lots of fanfic, and some intense wookieepedia browsing. So please forgive any butchering of the peeps. And wow plot what plot does plot even exist in my brain? Who knows.


End file.
